


Safe Harbour

by berlin_by_sea



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: "Jerusalem", Family Angst, Family Fluff, Gen, Mycroft Being a Good Brother, Mycroft Feels, Originally Posted on FanFiction.Net, and did those feet in ancient times..., boot scootin', country music as punishment, emotional development, platonic mollcroft, pre-sherlolly, proto sherlolly, there can never be enough Mycroft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-06
Updated: 2015-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-13 05:28:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4509609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/berlin_by_sea/pseuds/berlin_by_sea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A shipboard Holmes family reunion between TRF and TEH, Mycroft POV. Presupposed Sherlolly, but mostly fluffy family feels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe Harbour

**Author's Note:**

> Explanation wise, I offer the following to help you traverse the minefield of obscure references and head canon:
> 
> \- The story is set between the events of 'Reichenbach' and 'The Empty Hearse, referencing vaguely things in 'Many Happy Returns'; namely the Continental setting and chronology.
> 
> -I am effectively ignoring the 'bolthole theory' in favour of Mycroft doing a lot of admin from London on Sherlock's behalf.
> 
> -This story portrays a relationship between Molly and Mycroft that is 100% platonic in my mind.
> 
> -This is proto-Sherlolly? PreSherlolly? Whatever it is, it presupposes something other than or more than friendship or basic manipulation on Sherlock's part.
> 
> -In case it's not obvious, I know absolutely nothing about the layout of passenger ships, save what I've seen distantly as a passenger or on all of those 'Charlie's Angels' cruise episodes!
> 
> -There's a thinly veiled reference to 'Withnail and I' in here, points to whoever spots it.
> 
> -In case it comes up, the "I will not not cease from mental fight/ Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand" is, of course, from "Jerusalem" (a.k.a 'And did those feet in ancient times'). Synonymous, at least for me, with England; some of you will be impressed by the vague connection with St George, the dragon slayer.

From his vantage point on the balcony attached to his parents' top deck stateroom, Mycroft Holmes calculated roughly how long it would take him to drown should he decide to give in and throw himself into the Danube. The deep, dark and blessedly quiet Danube. It was about 9:00pm and a freezing wind whipped his cheeks, meaning he could look forward to the bitter cold of the water sapping his strength and effectively immobilizing any self-preservatory flailing his hind brain might prompt at the last minute. If he was lucky, he might get tangled in one of the ship's motors and get shredded to pieces. The thought of meeting a cowardly, painful and watery end in a vista straight off a chocolate box was preferable to the Hell on Earth he'd been enduring for the last two hours.

"No 'Boot Scootin' Boogie' in the Danube," he muttered to himself, wincing at the insistent bass line of some country and western atrocity blaring from CD playing in the room behind him. "No 'Achy Breaky Heart' in there either."

"You are not leaving me an only child!" growled Sherlock, as his face appeared in sight at approximately ankle height. With a grunt, he dragged himself up over the frigid aluminium bars of the balcony wall. The moon was shrouded by clouds, leaving little light except what could filter around the curtains in the window of the stateroom. It was enough to identify an expression on Sherlock's face that Mycroft expected mirrored the grimness on his own.

"Ah, the prodigal son returns," he drawled, offering his hand to his younger brother to shake like the quintessential Englishman he was. Dimness aside, he sized up the lean frame, perceived the usual strength in the grip of the hand around his, the ridiculous shaggy nimbus of over-long curls and the bulging duffel bag humped over the utilitarian dark layers of clothing. Thriving like a weed, as always.

"Returns?" Sherlock echoed with a sneer. "Returns to what? You've gone on holiday," the last was an accusation.

"Not deliberately, I assure you."

"Of course not," was the reply and the accompanying boyish grin was reassuring.

"Time to do the pretty, brother mine," he sighed, sliding open the balcony door and parting the curtains to usher Sherlock through and back into the bosom of his loving parents. The demonic tinny shrieking of a 'merry' fiddle sawed through his brain and Mycroft thought that Nero's performance as Rome burned before him couldn't have sounded more dire.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Mummy had been remarkably patient and understanding about the whole thing. Raising two sons such as hers had given her a wealth of experience dealing with genius and the madness that seemed part and parcel of it, so when Mycroft had told her that Sherlock had found it necessary to fake his own death and later go 'on the lam' for a while to take down an extensive international criminal network, she took him at his word, but not without attempting to exert her maternal right to interfere.

"You can't act to save yourself, so you must not expect to be part of the ruse," he'd warned her, accepting another scone from the plate she held towards him. Father sat in the corner of their sitting room, mostly silent as always; diligently working on a Paint By Numbers rendering of a scene from the storming of Badajoz by Wellington.

"Oh, but-" Mummy tried.

"No, Mummy," Mycroft returned firmly. "Sherlock must leave his rooks in the initial position for now."

"Tarrasch rule," Father murmured, apropos of the analogy.

"Precisely," Mycroft rejoined.

When, one day, Mummy had pressed her elder son for an update on her younger and found – to her delight – that the whole sorry affair was approaching being over, she demanded that Mycroft engineer a 'Continental interlude' to allow the family to reunite before Sherlock's final sabotage mission in the Balkans. She had handed him a glossy colour leaflet from the local travel agent and shushed him before he could manage the inevitable excuse of work.

"Don't say no to your mother, Mycroft," Father had called from the garden with his usual vague precision.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

After what seemed like an eternity of pretend ear-boxing and mock lectures (Mummy) and tearful hugs (Father) that had somehow spread from the long, lost Sherlock to himself, Mycroft was finally allowed to escape to his own, more modest stateroom on the second deck and retire to bed.

He'd settled under the covers with a Galaxy bar and some Goethe and was sniggering at the emotional excesses of hapless young Werther when his exterior door swung open with a bang and his brother strode inside, looking like a young lordling surveying his domains as he cast his gaze about the space with a cocky eyebrow raised.

"I refuse to bed down with them," Sherlock began, hefting his duffel bag onto the floor with a loud thump. "Mummy wouldn't let me smoke and Father said I was too old to be gadding about the place without pyjamas on."

"Surely you can find alternate accommodations," Mycroft replied with an eye roll. His little brother had always had the most immature predilection for nudity and there had been several occasions where most effusive apologies had been required to policemen, clergymen and school masters as a result.

"I have," Sherlock returned with a grin. Mycroft sighed loudly.

"You will also be required to remain clothed in my cabin," he said, indicating his own sleeping attire. "I've a second set, if required."

Sherlock was already rifling through the compact chest of drawers built into the wall. "What about a second chocolate bar?"

"Get your own, little brother," Mycroft said, before giving in to the temptation to cram the remaining portion into his mouth and returning his attention to his novel.

Sherlock disappeared into the ensuite for a 45 minute shower and when he came back, he whipped the sodden towel off his hair and theatrically cast it to the floor. "You'd better not still hog all the blankets," he announced, climbing onto the other side of the bed with a grimace.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Meals were typically taken en masse on these kinds of voyages, he'd been told, so Mycroft had taken the precaution of ensuring that the Holmes party could eat together in the privacy of his parents' stateroom for the most part, though he was open about his desire to avoid the spectacle of the feeding frenzy below deck.

"Pigs to the trough," he muttered, disgusted, as he dragged his parents out of the dining hall and away from the lunchtime buffet on the day they set sail.

"Mycroft, behave," his mother had replied in exasperation, though she hadn't complained since now that Sherlock had joined them and she had the capacity to nag and feed him in private.

The Wi-Fi signal was weak, but sufficient for Mycroft to ignore his family as he reviewed his emails. Father, always one for reading at the table in spite of whatever criticisms his wife may offer, was engrossed in a Hungarian newspaper he'd gotten from somewhere and occasionally offered verbal agreements with the editorials. Mummy had settled for buttering, spreading jam on and trimming the crusts from an endless pile of toast in an effort to rectify her younger son's "dreadful" thinness.

"Enough, Mummy," Mycroft said eventually, withdrawing a bundle of letters from the inner pocket of his jacket and extending them to Sherlock.

"Jealous?" his brother commented archly, snatching the letters away. The effect was ruined by the smudge of jam on Sherlock's cheek and Mycroft decided not to point it out to him. The envelopes were plain white, but a thick, good quality paper, and were addressed in a neat, feminine cursive. Mycroft watched as Sherlock inspected the bundle – secured with a light blue ribbon he had most certainly not supplied – and frown at the lack of sender's name or address on the back. He obviously recognised the hand, but couldn't place it. Father had no such issue.

"Letters from Molly?" Father said evenly and without real question. Sherlock flinched at her name and looked to Mycroft immediately for confirmation.

"Indeed," Mycroft drawled.

Sherlock sprang to his feet, knocking his chair over, and fled; taking the letters with him. Presumably to the stateroom on the second deck. Mycroft was unsurprised by the reaction, but Mummy stared open-mouthed.

"You think he'd never gotten the post before in his life," she remarked, and her hands began to mechanically butter toast again and divide it equally between hers and Father's plates.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

He'd timed 90 minutes and then consciously waited another few before he let himself into his cabin. Sherlock sat at the window, the bundle of letters all now opened and lying abandoned in a trail across the carpeted floor that suggested they'd been consumed while pacing. Mycroft read the obvious tension in his brother's neck and shoulders.

"Dear Sherlock," the man himself began in a monotone, still staring through the glass. "I hope you don't mind if I write to you, only your brother said that I would have to accept that I couldn't see you or speak to you and I wanted to tell you that you are missed."

Mycroft quietly took the seat by the door, content for now to listen.

"Mr Holmes – your brother – Mycroft; I hope he wouldn't mind me calling him that!-" the flatness of Sherlock's recitation robbed the words of emphasis, but Mycroft had gotten to known Doctor Hooper unique intonation well enough to imagine her flustered and he smiled.

"Well, your brother said that he could set up an email protocol if I wanted, though he didn't promise me a response. Or that you'd even read them. But I told him that letters are more personal because you're sending something tangible. Something that I've touched and now you're touching too. It's silly, I know. You'd tell me I'm being pointlessly sentimental. The words only exist on this paper; you can burn them – you probably will have to burn them – and they don't exist anymore. But in the beginning, I sat and I wrote them out, my pen scraping depressions into the paper that you'll be able to understand and feel, if you run your fingers over them. And then I folded the paper, put it in an envelope and asked your brother to give it to you when he could. He told me he didn't know when that would be and that's okay He told me not to expect him to ferry anything back like a common errand boy and that's okay too. I don't expect anything from you, Sherlock, I never have. But I wanted to tell you that I am thinking of you and I miss you. It doesn't matter that you're not thinking of me or missing me in return."

He'd anticipated something to this extent, but the words themselves made Mycroft flush in embarrassment. Both at the intimacy of the message relayed and in sympathy for the woman who had obviously abased herself before a man like Sherlock Holmes. While Mycroft would have pretended to have had no interest in the contents of Molly's Hooper's letters to his brother, they both knew he would have read them in an instant, had the opportunity presented itself. Sherlock had saved him the trouble of scheming and in this…performance…had taken the upper hand by revealing himself to be immune to the sentiment that so obviously discomforted Mycroft. Or so Sherlock thought. The gambit, to Mycroft, smacked of desperation to appear unmoved. It wasn't working.

"It goes on-" Sherlock said, "John is devastated, but he's trying to rebuild his life. John is working in a clinic full-time now. John told me that he's been seeing a lady from work called Mary. John moved in with Mary and they look so happy. John still gets this look in his eyes sometimes and, oh, I'm always crying on the Tube home."

The last came out in a mordant burst as Sherlock got to his feet to resume pacing.

"Mrs Hudson misses you and won't let out your flat. Mrs Hudson tells me that she misses John but she thinks it hurts him to come to Baker St to see her and she doesn't push. Mrs Hudson called me last night, crying and I felt so incapable of doing anything for her."

"Sherlock-" Mycroft began.

"No, brother," Sherlock spat, turning to him. "You would have read them. As soon as you could, without having to worry about putting me off the scent with resealing the envelope, making sure not to smudge the ink. Don't tell me you wouldn't. And so you will listen."

"As you wish," Mycroft replied after a moment, sighing.

"Greg and his wife have reconciled, which is lovely. They stood him down at work, there was an enquiry. Greg says they don't trust him. Greg says he doesn't regret it. Greg says Anderson has these theories and you'd laugh if you could hear them."

Sherlock punctuated each sentence with a kick at the pages at his feet, his agitation growing as he spoke.

"Yesterday, I walked past that phone booth near Barts – the one near the plaza – and there were signs all over it. I believe in Sherlock Holmes, they said. It made me smile to see."

By this point, he was shouting and Mycroft forced himself to sit still and watch it.

"I've enclosed some updates on your experiments. You told me once they were best left at the lab because you had more important things to do than keep the notes and I could clearly spare the time to attend to them."

"I just wanted you to know," and by this point, Mycroft could see that Sherlock was beyond overwhelmed, "that you can always trust me to help."

With that, what self-control Sherlock had left apparently dissipated fast and he set about destroying the stateroom with a roar. Mycroft had seen his brother in a temper before, had dealt with the fall-out of it. He'd tried to tell him since infancy, as a good brother would, that emotion wouldn't benefit him; that falling victim to sentimentality would only detract from success.

"Why are you doing this, Sherlock?" he said, in an attempt to diffuse the tension with reason.

"I don't know!" came the reply through gritted teeth, but it didn't stop Sherlock smashing the chair he'd sat on to pieces and advancing on the small coffee table.

"Mycroft!" came Mummy's voice at the door then and Mycroft exhaled his relief as he let her in. She flew across the floor with surprising speed to Sherlock and banded her arms around him, exactly as she had when he was a child. He subsided with a sob and dropped to his knees, clutching at her.

"Come away, Croft," Father said, beckoning him into the hallway, and Mycroft allowed himself to be led away.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"I tried to sing him his goodnight song," Mummy relayed later on to Mycroft and Father after she'd put Sherlock to bed. "You remember," she prompted him, "I will not cease from mental fight,"

"Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand," Mycroft finished before he could stop himself. He grimaced.

"He told me not to be asinine and scoffed at me."

Mycroft smiled at that.

"I told him Molly had written to us too and then he demanded that I try to remember, word for word, what she'd said. How her handwriting had looked; was the force behind her pen even in every letter, did she join her numbers too, and was it slanted or evenly spaced across the page?"

"Quite even, I should say," Father added.

Mummy nodded. "You always did have a better memory, dear, so I said to Sherlock. He told me I was not to waylay you tomorrow with that dancing nonsense and that he would get a straight answer from you."

"She wrote to Croft too," Father added. Mycroft had definitely not passed on that particular piece of information and he shot the man a hard look.

"Those were not the only envelopes in your pocket," Father clarified, with a small smile.

Mycroft was about to respond when he was interrupted.

"Give them to me," Sherlock demanded from the doorway. Even with the extra weight from the additional length weighing the curls down, his hair stood on end in places and his eyes were red; telling Mycroft he had tried and failed to go to sleep.

"Mycroft, give them to me," Sherlock repeated, hand extended.

"It would not be right to betray a confidence," Mycroft said firmly.

Mummy looked as if she wanted to disagree, but she inclined her head, conceding the point.

"I won't ask again," Sherlock bit out.

"I wasn't aware you had to begin with," Mycroft retorted. "Besides, I cannot possibly see what interest you could have in Doctor Hooper's private remarks to me. I noticed that in her own letters to you, she took the trouble to report on your other…acquaintances without deviation to the realms of personal."

Sherlock fumed.

"He told me that conversation's not my area," Mycroft quoted. "He never liked my rambling."

His brother recoiled as if slapped and deflated visibly, hanging his head. Mycroft almost felt sorry for him.

"Is that true?" Father asked quietly.

"It must be," Mycroft replied. "Doctor Hooper is, without question, a completely honest correspondent."

"Seems to me that she'd be very good at it," Mummy said matter-of-factly. "Conversation, that is. Didn't have to write to us, after all, but she said her heart broke for us. This is before she knew that we knew."

Sherlock had no response.

"I can only think you don't really know her, then," Father addressed Sherlock evenly. "Why else would you say such a thing?"

"I've deleted it," Sherlock mumbled.

"What was that?" Father returned, brooking no opposition.

"I've deleted it," Sherlock said again, enunciating carefully as if it pained him to.

"Could it be that you've treated that girl badly and you're ashamed of it?" Mummy said, though her tone indicated that it wasn't really a question.

"I hope not," Father replied. "If nothing else, she is your colleague and a lady and I know you know better than to treat a lady with disrespect."

Mycroft snorted and received a severe look from his brother in response. A very childish urge to…dob…was making itself known to Mycroft and as a gentleman and an older brother, he fought it. Real life, he knew, was not always conducted using the perfect manners of the nursery. But then, with a son like Sherlock, his parents had never expected perfection; merely basic manners, civility. Sherlock was barely capable of that.

"Oh, goody, it's gang-up on Sherlock time, is it?" Sherlock looked around the table at the three of them and smirked. "I can't seem to escape it, even in my afterlife!"

It was entirely the wrong thing to say. Mycroft considered that the proverbial gloves were now well and truly off.

"Shall I tell Mummy and Father about Doctor Hooper, Sherlock?" Mycroft said, standing to approach his brother. Sherlock eyed him warily but held his tongue. So be it.

"I think I shall," Mycroft continued, circling Sherlock as he spoke. "Dr Molly Hooper is 34 and a specialist registrar at St Bartholomew's Hospital. She's a histopathologist by training, completing her undergraduate degree at the University of Edinburgh, where she managed to complete her coursework a semester early and still took a first. She was and remains the youngest pathologist employed at St Barts."

Father looked impressed by the recitation thus far but offered no comment.

"An only child and orphan," Mycroft continued.

"Poor girl," Mummy murmured softly.

"Her background is Anglo-Irish. Her only vice is drinking, though to negligible quantity, I assure you. Has no children and has never been married, though she has one cat – Toby – that she lavishes with unseemly affection."

Mummy chuckled.

"Let's see, what else?" Mycroft was only just getting started and he conveyed as much to his brother non-verbally, glorying in the warning look he received in return. "Approximately five-feet-three-inches tall, she's generally between nine to ten stones in weight and is prone to self-consciousness about this. She has brown hair and brown eyes,"

"I told you!" Mummy crowed to Father.

"Has been told that her lips and breasts are small," Mycroft added with relish, shooting a pointed look at Sherlock.

"No!" Mummy uttered, scandalized and apparently unaware of the subtext.

"But all of this is neither here nor there," Mycroft said with an affected yawn. "What is important is that she has known Sherlock for six years, has been in love with him for at least four of them,"

Mummy gasped and even Father seemed shocked.

"And two years ago," Mycroft said, preparing to deliver his coup de grace, "she helped Sherlock plan and successfully execute his little swan dive from the roof of her place of employment."

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Out of charity to his younger brother, Mycroft had left off further abuse and instead sacrificed him to the tender mercies of their parents and went below deck to bed. Mummy had since tidied up the mess Sherlock had made and returned the room to as normal a state as possible given that some of the furniture was now reduced to irredeemable chunks of veneer-coated particle board, so Mycroft retrieved his pyjamas, brushed his teeth and turned off the bedside lamp with a grateful sigh.

He'd taken that second packet of letters from the inside pocket of his jacket on his way through the door and run his finger along the neatly cut edges where he'd opened them meditatively. They weren't all there, obviously, though the several he'd collected en route to the airport for this 'Continental interlude' would be enough.

He'd set the bundle down on the table, with the cursive address Mr Mycroft Holmes (no address, they had a drop-off protocol that made it unnecessary) facing upwards.

As an afterthought, he'd pulled a Galaxy bar from the beneath the false bottom of his suitcase and laid it beside the letters.

On the fifth day, Mummy, Father, Mycroft and Sherlock had stayed up late for a game of Operation before the latter had to slip off board under the cover of darkness. Father, with his natural stillness, had an unfair advantage, though Sherlock was no slouch and generally Mummy and Mycroft competed for the Wooden Spoon.

"Never did comprehend how Sherlock, with his chronic lack of patience, could always beat you," Mummy commented to him. Mycroft's response was good-natured but profane.

"Shouldn't 'The Iceman', by virtue of his frozen nature, be cold and composed?" Sherlock chimed in.

Mummy and Father shared a confused look, but were used to not fully understanding the references made by their sons.

At last, the game was packed up and returned to Father's suitcase and Mummy had repacked Sherlock's duffel bag and managed to cram it full of "essentials" there wasn't really space for. Sherlock hugged his parents both in turn with only mild protests and finally turned to his brother.

"I've taken them," Sherlock said, looking characteristically unashamed.

"I thought as much," Mycroft returned placidly. He knew that it went without saying that he'd kept the other letters Molly had written him and it seemed fair that if he had to part with any, that it was to Sherlock.

Together, they pushed aside the curtain and opened the sliding door to step onto the balcony. There was a smuggler's moon; perfect for enabling Sherlock to escape to the banks of the Danube unseen, and the two men stood quietly enjoying a brief companionable silence while they could.

"I wrote her a letter," Sherlock said suddenly. He turned to face Mycroft. "I…destroyed it."

Mycroft was surprised by this development but chose to say nothing.

"Remember me to Molly," Sherlock said after a moment. The lack of light made it hard to read his expression.

"Anything particular?" Mycroft asked without inflection.

"Tell her I-" he seemed unable to finish and swallowed hard.

"As best I can," Mycroft offered, turning. Before he could object, Mycroft caught his brother in a brief hug. "Be safe, brother mine," he muttered into his hair and released him, stepping away quickly.

"See you soon," Sherlock said. He hefted the duffel bag over his shoulder and swung first one leg, then the other, over the balcony rail. He disappeared downwards with nary a sound and Mycroft stayed put, waiting until a modest splash could be heard, in case Sherlock turned back.

He didn't – he never had – but it was easier to part this way: already waiting for his return.


End file.
